At one time, Greece was considered to be on the edge of a default and that panic has at least faded away. Greece and Ireland are the weakest of the Euro zone members and they continue to pay more for the money that they borrow, but better news is around the corner. The Euro zone bailout fund earned a highly sought after AAA rating. But there are still deep-seated problems in the European zone. Soon the European Commission will discuss ideas to help remedy problems and the hope is that key issues are targeted first. Europe’s single currency is by no means disastrous, for its presence meant that the damage of the recent past would have been far more catastrophic, maybe something resembling the currency instability of the early 1990’s. Price stability is the main concern, and this has been  [...] 

On the face of it, Vodafone has absolutely nothing to whine about. It sold a 3.2% stake it held in China Mobile bought for $3.3 billion for a 100% profit earlier this month (on the 8th, to be precise). So, from a period spanning approximately six years, Vodafone have a pure profit on their investment (beside any other revenues and profits) of $3.3 billion. Sounds like a good deal, right? That’s because it is. It’s the kind of return on investment that sees you crack open a bottle of champagne (maybe even a case of champagne) and celebrate long and hard into the night. So why is Vodafone so sullen about their exit? The answer lies in the realm of business stratagems and not pure numbers and economics. Vodafone has, for long, made a business out of buying a small stake in a company and turning  [...] 

Unemployment is charting record highs, to say the economy is in the doldrums would be an understatement and to make things more interesting, the midterm elections is only a few weeks away. Politicians being politicians, this is the time to take action and do something meaningful for there is an electorate to be swayed by decisive action, what with public memory being short and all that. And so the guns are now trained on the Chinese to demonstrate that our country’s leaders are willing to take tough action where it’s needed. Something is better than nothing, but what this constitutes is nothing more than wishful thinking at best and dangerously thin ice at worst. Recently, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner addressed the Senate Banking Committee and talked about the need to see what measures  [...] 

The sights, lights and sounds of the county fair are like a flame to the young boy’s moth-like visage. The boy, however, has no money of his own and must be taken there by his father, who hands out a dollar to the boy so that he may spend it on anything. “But there is one thing, boy”, said the father. “You must not enjoy yourself while spending that dollar, or I will take it back from you.” The boy is confused by it all; that dollar doesn’t buy him tickets for any ride at all in any case, since the cheapest ride costs more than a dollar. So if he can’t spend it in any other way that is meant to be “fun”, what was the point of giving him that dollar? And so when father and son stand pointlessly in the fair, the father wonders why the boy is just standing there hand in hand,  [...] 

There was a time when the martini glasses were clinked relentlessly and the employees smoked anywhere they wanted, wherever they wanted, in the great American car companies of yore. That now seems like an age away, and that’s because it is. Fifty years is a very, very long time and at that time, many wondered what made Detroit’s finest tick. Everyone wanted to get a piece of these automotive doyens, everyone wanted to work for them and it seemed as if everyone did in fact work for them. General Motors was the single largest private sector employer anywhere in the world and it wasn’t just a victory by numbers; the number of satisfied customers was more than enough to fill up a few case studies. How times have changed since then. Today, the world is every bit as awestruck as they were then,  [...] 

Is the age of the cashless transaction coming, and is our generation going to be a truly cashless one? Mexico is one of the first countries in the world whose legislature will actually ban very large cash transactions of a certain nature, and South Korea is moving towards becoming a truly cashless society and this is no longer just a pipe dream. These are just the first moves of a worldwide movement to clamp down on cash. Mexico’s reasons are obvious, they need to fight against illegal drug trafficking and to ensnare tax evaders but what of the rest of the world, and more importantly what becomes of financial privacy? If cash does indeed get banned, your government, and pretty much every other government, will be able to keep tabs on your financial transactions with ease as you use the electronic  [...] 

Bonds have been going a bit batty, to say the least. It’s a bit of doom and gloom being predicted by analysts and experts, and it seems to be as if at least some of those predictions are true as bonds have tumbled to 2.54% from its level of 2.99% three weeks earlier. This was mirrored by a similar plunge in bonds issued by other major governments all over the world as ten year bonds issued by Japan, Germany and the UK offered reduced yields as compared to previous levels. It’s almost as if everything has gone a bit mental of late as corporate bonds have started to fly high and everyone is cashing in. Of late, tech giant IBM has sold off $1.5 billion worth of three years bonds that had a yield as low as 1%; and it flew off the shelves (so to speak) like hotcakes! It is almost a bemused sense  [...] 

Have you ever played Russian Roulette, that deadly game of life and death? Well investing your money right now is not a whole lot different than that. You take a loaded gun with one bullet somewhere in the six chambers and you put it to your temple not knowing if it’ll blow you away or not. There’s a five in six chance of survival (or 83.33%), but there’s also that very large chance that you might just put a bullet through your brain. So, you have to ask yourself the question; do you feel lucky, punk? I’m guessing most of you just don’t feel that lucky. Or, you could look at it as an optimist and say that this is a half-full glass and not one that is half-empty. There’s a big chance that you will hit the big time and that you’ll be able to make a giant chunk of change for yourself.  [...]